THE EFFECT OF FREE TRADE ON POLLUTION POLICY AND WELFARE

In this paper I consider a small economy facing accession to a trade agreement. Before accession the government has control over trade and environmental policy. After accession it retains control over environmental policy but has to allow free trade. Through the analysis I highlight an effect of free trade neglected in the literature so far. Adoption of free trade shifts the economic incidence of pollution tax from consumers onto producers of the polluting good. Under fairly plausible conditions, this change in incidence can reduce the distortion in pollution tax. Even though the choice of accession is influenced by special interest groups, I find that accession can be accompanied by an improvement in pollution policy and an increase in aggregate welfare.Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade,

Utility rebates for ENERGY STAR appliances: Are they effective?

We estimate the impact of utility cash rebates on the market share of ENERGY STAR appliances by exploiting the variation in timing and size of rebates across US states. We find that a dollar increase in the population-weighted utility rebate raises the share of ENERGY STAR qualified clothes washers by 0.4%, but does not affect dishwasher and refrigerator shares. Using information on energy saved by an ENERGY STAR appliance and assuming a redemption rate of 40%, the cost per tonne of carbon saved is about $140 for the clothes washers rebate program. The corresponding cost of a megawatt hour saved, about$28, is lower than the estimated cost of building and operating an additional power plant and the average on-peak spot price. We conclude that the ENERGY STAR clothes washers rebate program is, on average, a cost-effective way for utilities to reduce electricity demand

THE USERS OF LUMBER AND THE US-CANADA SOFTWOOD LUMBER AGREEMENT: AN EVENT STUDY

In this paper we analyze whether the Softwood Lumber Agreement between US and Canada imposed significant economic costs on the users of Lumber in the US. To ascertain this impact we use an event study. Our event study analyzes variations in the stock prices of lumber using firms listed at the major stock markets in the US. We find that events leading to the Softwood Lumber Agreement had significant negative impacts on the stock prices of industries using softwood lumber. The average reduction of stock prices for our sample of firms was approximately 5.42% over all the events considered.International Relations/Trade,

Utility Rebates for ENERGY STAR Appliances: Are They Effective?

In this paper we estimate the increase in the market share of ENERGY STAR-qualified appliances that can be attributed to targetted cash rebates offered by utility companies. To estimate the impact of these incentives we use the variation in timing and size of the utility rebates across the US states. We then use these estimates along with information on the average energy saved by using an ENERGY STAR appliance relative to a non-ENERGY STAR appliance to provide an estimate on the cost per tonne of carbon saved by the rebate program. Our results show that a dollar increase in the rebate leads to a 0.3% increase in the share of ENERGY STAR-qualified clothes washers while the effect of rebates is not significant for dishwashers and refrigerators. Assuming a redemption rate of 40%, we calculate the cost of saving a tonne of carbon through the clothes washer rebate program to be around $158. The corresponding cost of a megawatt hour saved (about$32), is lower than the estimated cost of building and operating an additional power plant and the average on-peak spot price. We conclude that the ENERGY STAR clothes washers rebate programs are a cost-effective way for utilities to reduce energy demand.Eco-labelling, energy efficiency, appliances, utility rebates, carbon saving, energy saving

TIME INCONSISTENT RESOURCE CONSERVATION CONTRACTS

Are commonly observed resource conservation contracts efficient? In this paper we construct a model that embodies common characteristics of resource contracts. Using this model, we analyze a large class of real-world resource contracts and find them to be economically inefficient. This inefficiency stems from a time inconsistency inherent in these contracts. There are two possible ways to overcome this time inconsistency. The first is to employ a sufficiently large penalty for early termination of the contract. The second and possibly easier method is to offer an upward sloping conservation payment schedule so far overlooked by resource contracts. Under this payment schedule, the agent's ex-ante and ex-post contract choices coincide, social externalities are fully internalized, and the contractual outcome is economically efficient even in the absence of a penalty for early termination.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

SUSTAINABILITY WITH UNBALANCED GROWTH: THE ROLE OF STRUCTURAL CHANGE

Environmental Economics and Policy, International Development,

Estimating pollution abatement costs of salmon aquaculture

Salmon aquaculture generates good output (i.e. salmon) and bad output (e.g., pollution). A joint production function approach is applied to model both outputs simultaneously. Two environmental production technologies are proposed, namely, regulated and unregulated technologies. Two production function models with different mapping rules in the analysis are used. Pollution abatement costs are estimated based on a series of data from the Norwegian salmon aquaculture industry. The results indicate that pollution abatement costs vary among observations and models. On average, pollution abatement cost is estimated to be about 2.6% in terms of total farmed salmon production, and 4.6% in terms of total revenue of farmed salmon

Protecting biodiversity in British Columbia: Recommendations for developing species at risk legislation

British Columbia has the greatest biological diversity of any province or territory in Canada. Yet increasing numbers of species in British Columbia are threatened with extinction. The current patchwork of provincial laws and regulations has not effectively prevented species declines. Recently, the Provincial Government has committed to enacting an endangered species law. Drawing upon our scientific and legal expertise, we offer recommendations for key features of endangered species legislation that build upon strengths and avoid weaknesses observed elsewhere. We recommend striking an independent Oversight Committee to provide recommendations about listing species, organize Recovery Teams, and monitor the efficacy of actions taken. Recovery Teams would evaluate and prioritize potential actions for individual species or groups of species that face common threats or live in a common area, based on best available evidence (including natural and social science and Indigenous Knowledge). Our recommendations focus on implementing an adaptive approach, with ongoing and transparent monitoring and reporting, to reduce delays between determining when a species is at risk and taking effective actions to save it. We urge lawmakers to include this strong evidentiary basis for species recovery as they tackle the scientific and socioeconomic challenges of building an effective species at risk Act

Protecting biodiversity in British Columbia: Recommendations for developing species at risk legislation

British Columbia has the greatest biological diversity of any province or territory in Canada. Yet increasing numbers of species in British Columbia are threatened with extinction. The current patchwork of provincial laws and regulations has not effectively prevented species declines. Recently, the Provincial Government has committed to enacting an endangered species law. Drawing upon our scientific and legal expertise, we offer recommendations for key features of endangered species legislation that build upon strengths and avoid weaknesses observed elsewhere. We recommend striking an independent Oversight Committee to provide recommendations about listing species, organize Recovery Teams, and monitor the efficacy of actions taken. Recovery Teams would evaluate and prioritize potential actions for individual species or groups of species that face common threats or live in a common area, based on best available evidence (including natural and social science and Indigenous Knowledge). Our recommendations focus on implementing an adaptive approach, with ongoing and transparent monitoring and reporting, to reduce delays between determining when a species is at risk and taking effective actions to save it. We urge lawmakers to include this strong evidentiary basis for species recovery as they tackle the scientific and socioeconomic challenges of building an effective species at risk Act

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects